There is still a lot of talk in the skeptic community about “harassment”, and what constitutes it. Ophelia Benson claims that people photoshopping her constitutes harassment. In this post, I will show how ridiculous that idea is!

Here is a goat. Lets call him Clive:

Now, lets say for sake of argument that I want to mock Barack Obama. I could do that by putting his head on Clive and putting a crude message on the picture:

Now, according to Ophelia Benson, photoshopping constitutes harassment, so does the above image harass Barack Obama? I don’t think so! Let’s apply the same thing to a picture of Ophelia:

Now, who would consider either of the above pictures to be “harassing” of Barack Obama or Ophelia Benson? Only the hypersensitive or the histrionic I guess!

I don’t mean to say that only prominent names can harass. Rather, that if Richard actually intended that photo to reach Obama (as he clearly intends it to reach Ophelia), and it was likely to reach him, then yes it’s harassment.

If anyone fancies losing a few brain cells you could do worse than peruse Richards blog. I recommend the one where he managed to morph Paul Fidalgo’s post into bullying and the one that says feminism is incompatible with scepticism. Even his own “side” hand his arse to him on the feminism one.

Know what this reminds me of? The whining that conservatives get up to when you tell them it’s racist to compare Obama to a chimp but not racist to do the same to George W. It’s like they can’t see how the same act could possibly have a different impact depending on the context and circumstances.

Okay, so, it’s fine if you want to photoshop Obama’s head onto a goat’s body. It’s even fine if you do the same with an image of Ophelia’s head. I mean, whatever–“It’s a free country!”

So then, what comes next? The rest of us look at your puerile contributions and think, “Well, clearly this person doesn’t like Obama/Ophelia, but that’s about the extent of it. I guess you don’t have any interesting, fact-based objections to Obama/Ophelia, because if you did, you wouldn’t be resorting to crude photoshops to communicate your distaste.”

Maybe you have the capacity to make actual arguments AND do crude photoshops. Okay, so then what have you added to your cogent, fact-based critique by making a silly photoshop? What is the point of the crude photoshop? Obama/Ophelia is so stupid, they’re like a goat. They’re smelly or something. In other words, nothing. And you’ve damaged your own credibility as a grown-up by acting like a child.

By broadcasting this crude goat-person photoshop, all you’ve done is reveal that your thinking is childlike and you lack emotional maturity. And then you want to complain that people think poorly of you because of the juvenile, sneering tactics you use to broadcast your distaste for Obama/Ophelia? Yeah, that would be your own emotional immaturity at work again.

Uh, yes, this might be one of those instances where context has a teeny little bit to do with it, no?

* If I call a stranger at home and say “Oops, wrong number”… that is not harassment.
* If I call a stranger at home and ask “Is your refrigerator running?” then giggle and hang up… that is annoying and juvenile, but it is not harassment.
* If I pick a particular stranger and call him ten times a day to ask if his refrigerator is running… THAT’S HARASSMENT.

See the difference here? Let’s try another one.

* If I Photoshop my best friend’s head on a goat, then post the photo on his Facebook wall (where he is free to approve or delete it) and leave a comment saying “That’s all you, buddy!”… that is not harassment.
* If I pick a stranger from Google images and photoshop THAT head onto a goat, and post it on Twitter with a link to their website… that’s pretty rude, but it is not harassment.
* If I put a stranger’s head on a variety of barn animals, or on humans in various sexual poses, spamming them with links or telling people to go to their blog and compliment them on the pictures… yeah, it’s harassment.
* If I only create ONE farm animal picture, but then also post to 4chan and say that they should ALL make farm animal pictures AND inform the person about it, that really the fuck is harassment.

These definitions acknowledge that the context of either intent (“aggressive pressure”) or frequency (“repeated”) is relevant to whether something is harassment or not. Richard has cutely neglected to mention the things that people are doing which DO rise to the level of harassment, and saying “That other thing I mentioned isn’t harassment, what’s the problem?”

So, Ophelia, does this mean you’ve officially been outed as the scapegoat for the anti-woman campaign? Seems a bit apt, if you ask me. They lay their disdain for all of us onto you and a few others, and now they’ve given us the symbolic message that you are, in fact, the scapegoat for all our “sins”.

Christ, can’t these people at the very least, look up the word skeptic? I’m all for identifying how one wants to identify, but shouldn’t one at least have a passing familiarity with what one is identifying as? Seems prudent to me.

While the discussion of what does and doesn’t rise to the level of harassment might be interesting to some people, there’s no need to discuss whether or not “Richard Reed” is an enormous asshole who has no place in the company of decent people.

Apparently Ophelia is not only a bad writer, she is also the only one who is so bad that someone feels the need to have her say it about herself in a photoshop of her face on a goat’s body. I mean the reason for it has to be that she’s a bad writer. There is no other logical explanation. The possibility that someone would do something like that without the main reason being that she is a bad writer is simply too preposterous to consider. How could it be otherwise, when we all know exactly who Richard Reed is and how impeccable his credentials are? That’s why you won’t see his real face photoshopped onto a goat’s body saying something demeaning about himself. What other reason could there be?

Gosh, I wonder why he used a picture of a goat instead of the actual picture of an elderly naked woman that was used in the original photoshop that actually happened? Little attempt to whitewash there?

Execution of technique matters. Not much to say here: we live in a mash-up culture and that’ Photoshop is as crude as simply spray painting an illegible tiny tag on a wall.

Intent to create matters. What’s the message the artist is going for? So pretending it’s all just innocent and not harassment here is pretty much lying. Kazim #15 says it well with the fridge analogy.

Intended audience matters. Even though the whole world sees what’s online, posting a nasty Photoshop of Obama on a mainstream news site will generate a different reaction then something posted in a scraps gallery on DeviantArt. The person who made the image knows this and placed it somewhere that Ophelia is more likely to find it than Barack Obama.

Putting one Piss Christ in an art competition and then a fine art gallery is provocative. Putting the face of your local clergyman on one and mailing it to him over and over is harassment.

I thought of an example too – and then saw Karim’s (@15 above) – which is the same idea.

If someone pokes you in the arm in a crowd, it’s irritating but not harassment.

If thousands of people poke you in the arm every time you go out, that’s harassment.

If thousands of people conspire to ensure that everyone they know pokes you in the arm every time you go out, and laughingly suggests you are self obsessed for not being happy about all a poke in the arm, cunningly ignoring the fact that there is such a thing as context… Well…they are Justin Vacula. Or his followers.

Actually. Karim’s are better. Still. Really sorry this is still going on Ophelia…